Night Watcher (16 page)

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

By the time Harry got home he was not sure which part of his body ached most. He had walked all the way from the town centre because the buses stopped running hours ago and he did not have enough money for a taxi.

He hesitated, with his hand on the garden gate while he scanned the windows for a glimmer of light, and was thankful to see nothing but darkness. It was years since Babs had waited up for him to come home, but she never knew when to expect him nowadays and he could not tell her because he never knew himself. It seemed that as the pressures of his job increased, so did his restlessness.

Harry longed for the old days when he was happy at work and Babs could have set her clock by his movements. But that was in the days before Nicole rose to her elevated position. Maybe that was the reason she disliked him so much, because he could remember when she was just a sales assistant. That was before she started balling Patrick Drake, and earned her promotion on her back. Oh yes, he knew all about high and mighty Mrs Ralston. She hadn’t always been so powerful.

Sliding his key into the lock he opened the front door as quietly as he could, easing it shut once he was inside. He did not put on a light, he did not need it to feel his way up the stairs and he was afraid it might wake Rosie or Babs. Avoiding the loose floorboard on the top landing he eased Rosie’s bedroom door open and tiptoed over to her bed. She looked like an angel when she was asleep. He smiled and brushed his lips against her cheek before he sidled out the door again.

He wanted to relax in a hot bath to ease his aches and pains, but decided not to in case the rumbling of the water pipes wakened his sleeping family. So he crept along the landing into his bedroom, slipped his clothes off and slid into bed.

Babs turned, mumbling in her sleep. Harry longed to reach out to her, but knew the coldness of his body would wake her, and he did not want to explain why he was so late. Not that Babs would reproach him, but the disappointment in her eyes haunted him and he was finding it increasingly difficult to face her.

Harry lay in the dark, eyes closed, but not sleeping. This was the time when all his worries collected and pressed down on him and tonight was no exception. He did not recall falling asleep, but the harsh clanging of the alarm startled him awake. He shot his arm out of the bed, feeling for the button to silence it before the noise woke Babs. But he did not make it in time.

‘You were late home last night,’ she mumbled.

‘I wasn’t that late,’ Harry lied, guessing she would have been in bed by eleven o’clock.

‘I worry, you know,’ she said throwing the duvet to the side and slinging her legs out of the bed.

‘I know,’ he said pulling her back and covering her up. ‘You lie there. I’ll get my own breakfast and bring you a cup of tea.’ She had not realized how early it was and with a bit of luck, thought Harry, she’ll fall asleep after her tea without noticing the time.

Babs did not answer, but he could see the reproachful look in her eyes and he was glad to escape to the kitchen.

Drumming his fingers on the worktop he waited for the kettle to boil. He had already decided not to bother with breakfast in order to save time. The cleaners started work two hours before he did and he had to get there before they arrived, if he did not they might find Julie. But he had to take Babs her tea before he left so she would not get up and question him.

‘I’ll be off then,’ he said, moving the clock away and putting the cup on the bedside table. ‘No need for you to get up yet, Rosie’s still asleep.’ He kissed her forehead and left.

Outside there was no one around except for a scruffy looking dog pawing at rubbish bags and raking through the spillage. He ran along the street, afraid he would miss the bus, but then had to stand and wait for five minutes.

Wind rustled round the shopping square sending pieces of paper, silvery foil carry-out trays and leaves scudding across the paving stones. Ali was taking the steel shutters off his supermarket windows. Harry raised a hand in greeting to him, wondering if the man ever slept because he always seemed to be there.

The wind pummelled him making Harry pull his coat around his body. His blood must be getting thinner, he thought, for the mornings seemed to be colder nowadays. He was still shivering when the bus pulled up in a belch of fumes. He got on, huddling in a seat beside the heater, and relaxed. The bus would get him to the store in time to wake Julie. It would not do for her to be caught sleeping in the furniture department.

***

It was still dark when Julie woke and for a moment she thought nothing in her life had changed. She was back in her Edinburgh flat and the last few months had simply been a nightmare from which she had now wakened. In her dream state she knew that if she got up she could walk to the old-fashioned casement window where she could look out on the Mile which was what everyone called the High Street. She liked the Mile, that long narrow street that led in one direction to Edinburgh Castle and in the other direction to the Palace of Holyrood. She had been lucky to get a flat there in one of the old-fashioned tenements, though it cost her the earth.

She stretched her arm out expecting it to meet Dave’s warm body sleeping next to her, but there was only empty space and a cold bed. She remembered then. It was not a nightmare, it was real, and yet, when she had been sleeping she’d had the strangest sensation Dave was sitting there watching her. The feeling of being watched was so strong that she struggled into a sitting position and looked around her. But, even in the gloom she knew she had been mistaken, no one was there and even if there had been, it could not possibly be Dave because he was dead. She turned her face into the pillow and scrubbed her eyes with the corner of the duvet cover.

Tiredness swamped her. Her eyes closed. If she slept again maybe the nightmare would go away. But her eyes were full of grit, her tongue was sandpaper, and a hammer was beating inside her head. If only she could sleep she would not want to wake up ever again – but it was impossible.

After a time she sat up. Her head swam and there was a nauseous feeling in her gut. She struggled against it, trying to figure out where she was, because she was not in her Edinburgh flat, nor was she in the Dundee one.

Where the blazes was she?

Gradually she acclimatized, although it only added to her confusion. What on earth was she doing in a bed in the furniture department? Julie rubbed her forehead with a clenched fist hoping it would bring back a memory of how she got there, but it did not work. She had a vague recollection of a noisy pub, of drinking a lot, of a man with nice eyes, but beyond that, nothing.

Her head throbbed with the effort of thinking. Someone must have brought her here. But who? She shuddered. Surely she had not been so drunk she had slept with someone. And if she had, where was he? Christ, why couldn’t she remember? God she must have had a real skinful last night. More than usual, because she had never before suffered from amnesia.

She struggled out of the bed. She could not be found here when the store opened. How would she explain it? Particularly when she could not explain it to herself. As she rose something fluttered to the floor and, bending, she picked it up. There was a puzzled expression in her eyes as she looked at the silk scarf. It was beautiful, but it was not hers. She had never seen it before. Maybe the man with the nice eyes had given it to her. She shook her head. She could not remember.

Julie shivered. The heating had not come on in the store yet and she was wearing only her bra and panties. Looking around she spotted her coat, skirt and blouse folded neatly on the bed next to the one she had been sleeping in. She grabbed them and headed for the elevator. She would get dressed in the toilets downstairs and after that she would worry about what might have happened last night.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Nicole woke with a raging thirst and a beating head. After the police left she had drunk most of what had been left in the bottle of Glenfiddich. She was not usually a whisky drinker, but she had been so upset and annoyed by the way they had treated her that she had started on the bottle and kept going until it was almost empty.

‘Oh,’ she moaned, clamping a hand on her forehead. Why hadn’t they believed her? Why did they treat her like some kind of lamebrain? Smiling at her in that supercilious way some men have when they are talking to a woman. She hated that. It made her feel so inferior, as if she was a child again listening to her father telling her she was stupid. It was that sod, Scott, of course, filling their minds with ideas that she was paranoid, just a silly woman imagining things. She turned over in the bed ready to lambast him, but he was not there. His side of the bed was empty.

Nicole struggled into a sitting position, each movement sending a stab of pain through her temples. She looked at the clock, but could not focus. The daylight filtering through the window stabbed at her eyes so she supposed it must be morning. She sank back into the pillows, not caring what time it was. She would go in late – it would make up for all the extra hours she worked. Her eyelids slipped shut, but the headache kept her from sleeping. She started to count the stabs of pain thumping through her head with the regularity of a pulse-beat, but gave up because the effort of thinking was too great. The bed undulated beneath her and the room would not stay in one place. She tried to ignore the swimming sensation that made her feel she was floating, but when the wave of nausea hit, she forced herself to stumble from the bed into the bathroom. The white pile carpet swallowed her knees as she leaned over the toilet, but the porcelain was cool on her forehead. It helped to slow the room down until it had almost stopped spinning. She started to feel slightly better.

‘That was some night you had!’

Nicole did not need to look up to know that Scott would be smiling as he leaned against the door. One thing she knew she could never expect from Scott, was sympathy. Bastard.

‘What d’you care,’ she mumbled. ‘You’ve never cared much before.’

‘Of course I care,’ he sounded genuine, but when she looked up it was just as she expected. He was smiling.

Nicole struggled to her feet determined not to give him the pleasure of thinking she was suffering. Acid burned at the back of her throat, but she swallowed hard, trying to ignore it. The hammer inside her brain continued its staccato beat and her eyes lost their focus for a moment. She frowned, concentrating her gaze on a tile just above Scott’s head until her vision cleared again and she was able to walk to the door. Scott did not move out of her way and she had to push past him. She continued her careful walk out of the bedroom, intending to go to the kitchen and make an assault on the coffee pot, and almost fell over the suitcase before she saw it.

‘Going somewhere?’ Nicole struggled with the fuzz in her brain. She could not remember Scott mentioning a trip and she wondered if he was leaving her.

‘Paris,’ he said. ‘I told you yesterday I’d be leaving early to catch the cross-channel ferry. I have a meeting arranged with one of the biggest distributors of software in Europe. If I can get them to distribute our software it’ll mean big money.’

Nicole shook her head in an effort to clear it. Had he told her? She could not remember, but she did not think so. ‘I don’t recall you saying anything.’ She enunciated her words slowly.

‘The condition you were in yesterday I’m not surprised.’ Scott laughed, but it was without humour. ‘Anyway I’ve got to go. I just popped in to say goodbye.’

‘When will you be back?’ If he is coming back, she thought.

‘Not sure. I might have to go to Brussels and Cologne as well, but I won’t be away more than a week.’ He moved past her and picked up the suitcase. He hesitated a moment, ‘You’ll be all right?’

‘I suppose,’ she murmured. It would please him if she begged him to stay, but she was damned if she would.

‘Better get some clothes on,’ he murmured as he brushed his lips against her forehead.

‘Oh!’ she looked down, she had forgotten she was naked. ‘Yes, I suppose I’d better before Marika gets here.’

Scott was halfway along the corridor, but he turned to look at her, ‘I forgot to say I gave Marika the day off, something to do with her sister being ill.’

‘What the hell did you do that for? I need her here. Anyway I didn’t know she had a sister.’

‘Well, too late now, and sister or not, she’s not coming in today.’ He gave her a grin and with a wave of his hand he opened the door and left.

Nicole glared after him. ‘I hope your bloody boat sinks,’ she muttered as she turned and grabbed a robe. Wrapping it round herself she staggered to the kitchen and the coffee pot.

The first sip of coffee burned its way inside her and she started to waken up. That was when she saw the passport sitting on the kitchen table. ‘Let’s see you get to Paris without that,’ she muttered and, leaning over to pick up the briefcase from where she had thrown it last night, she stuffed Scott’s passport inside.

***

The Nethergate was deserted when Harry got off the bus. Patrick Drake’s store loomed at the other side of the road. The plate glass windows at street level, with their attractive displays, beckoned with promises of further delights inside. However, the rest of the building had a menacing air. He could not help looking upwards at the dark stone of the building, blackened through years of just being there in the city centre. The walls soared upwards like some mediaeval fortress until they reached the rounded attic windows, marching along the roof like ever watchful sentinels, overshadowed by the turret room in the corner facing the High Street. Harry imagined it would be possible to see in three directions from the turret room, however, it was boarded up because the floor was unsound and he did not know anyone who had ever been inside.

He crossed the road and walked down Whitehall Street until he came to the alley leading to the back door. It looked even more claustrophobic than usual, although he supposed he should be accustomed to it by this time. His footsteps echoed and he had the impression he was the only living being there. He looked around for the tramp, but he was not in his usual place. Harry shivered momentarily, fearing the worst, but shook off his premonition. Tramps moved around, it was their nature. He had probably got fed up with always being moved on. Still, there was a prickle of unease at the nape of his neck.

Harry never got used to the black silence of the store in the early hours of the morning and he always had the oddest feeling he was being watched. It was as if the store were a living entity, which had not woken up. But once it did, the odd little noises, the creaks and groans of the building settling, and the hissing of steam or water through the pipes, joined together in a chorus that was unnerving.

Harry flicked the light switch. At least he could get rid of the shadows. The spurt of electricity travelled both ways, up to the swinging, fizzing light and outwards along his finger with the slightest of shocks. He snatched his finger from the switch, ‘Bloody electrics, time they were sorted before I get a real electric shock.’ He sighed at the thought of having to report it again. Mrs Ralston would not be pleased and, as usual, she would make him feel it was his fault. ‘Serve her bloody right if the store went up in flames.’ He grinned at the thought and, after closing the outside door, hurried along the passage to the guardroom.

He shrugged his coat off and threw it over the back of the wobbly chair; the one he had not sat on since it unceremoniously threw him to the floor one morning. He had felt a right pillock then, but luckily it was Julie who had come along and helped him back to his feet. She had not laughed at him and he had always appreciated that, because he knew plenty who would.

The concertina steel radiator felt barely warm when he put his hand on it so he gave it a kick. Just as he had expected, it rumbled and shuddered into life with the usual creaks and groans as the water squeezed through the pipes. He felt it again, absorbing the vibrations shuddering up his arm. The heat followed with a spluttering fizzing noise until the radiator became so hot he had to remove his hand.

Satisfied, he left the guardroom, it would be nice and cosy when he returned from waking Julie. He hoped she was all right and had not been sick, for that would take some explaining.

The sound of scampering paws broke the silence as he walked through the food hall. He would have to speak to Neil again. It was his job to keep the store free of vermin, but he had not been making too good a job of it lately. Harry sighed. No doubt madam would blame that on him as well. She blamed him for everything else, whether or not it was his fault, so why would she act any differently. His knees weakened and his corn throbbed, he could not afford to lose this job, but lose it he would. It was growing more likely as each day passed.

He did not have to wait for the lift. It was sitting ready for him, as if he was expected, giving the impression the lift knew he was too weary to climb the stairs. The doors swooshed closed behind him and, with the smallest of jolts, it rose smoothly to the second floor.

Harry switched his torch on, it was too early for lights to be seen in the store, and headed for the middle of the floor so no light would reflect through the windows. He weaved between and around the furniture to the bedding area.

Stretching out his arm, he prodded the duvet that was humped in the middle of the bed, but it collapsed with the faintest breath of air for there was no body beneath it.

‘Julie, where are you?’ Harry did not know why he was whispering because there was no one in the store yet. He raised his voice to a shout, ‘Julie? Are you there?’ The silence mocked him. He shone his torch around, trying to pierce the shadows, but nothing moved. She was not here. Maybe she had gone home, he thought, only she would not have been able to get out of the store without setting off the alarms and if that had happened, he would have been called out. She must be here somewhere. Absent-mindedly he picked up the duvet and replaced it on the bed he had taken it from the previous night. Satisfied that everything was as it had been before he had left Julie in the bed, he walked back to the lift.

Harry left the lift at each floor and called Julie’s name, but there was no answer, and eventually he returned to the guardroom where he put the kettle on and brewed his tea. He slipped his shoes off under the table and leaned back sipping the strong brew while he planned what to do next. He came to the conclusion that Julie was probably hiding until the store opened, so he would look for her then.

***

Ken did not want to wake up. He did not want to go to the store today and most of all he did not want to see Nicole.

‘You were restless last night,’ Claire grumbled as she reached for her dressing gown.

‘Was I?’ Ken was glad she was talking to him again. He leaned over and hugged her. ‘You do know I love you. Don’t you?’

Claire wriggled free. ‘What brought that on?’

She brushed her fair hair back off her face. Ken loved it when it was that way, all tousled and mussed. It made her look like a girl again. Like the girl he had first seen galloping her horse over the Yorkshire moors, her hair streaming behind her and her cheeks pink in the wind. He had not thought he would stand a chance with her because he was only a working class boy at that time, although he had no intentions of remaining working class. Despite that he had pursued her relentlessly, as he did everything else, and when she agreed to marry him he thought he had won something priceless.

He had been smitten then and he still was. If it had to be a choice between Claire and Nicole, then Claire would win any time. There was nothing else for it; Nicole was going to have to go.